Suit: Sterling High School overstepped bounds in girl’s tweets penalty

A Sterling High School teenager thought she was chatting only with friends when she described her school’s principal with a string of vulgarities.

But the conversation was online — and school officials saw the insulting language when they checked the girl’s Twitter account.

Now, the Laurel Springs girl and her mother have sued, saying district administrators violated the teen’s freedom of speech by banning her from Sterling’s upcoming senior prom and senior trip. The lawsuit says the former cheerleader, identified only as H.W., also has been prohibited from walking with her class at graduation and is barred from any “school-sponsored activity.”

The suit contends the disciplinary measures are retaliation for the girl’s derogatory comment. It also accuses school officials of discrimination against the girl, saying she has a disability due to behavioral health issues.

“American citizens like H.W. do not shed their constitutional rights of free speech, nor their right to be free of illegal discrimination, merely because they attend school,” the suit asserts.

The suit seeks a preliminary injunction that would allow H.W. to participate in the prom and other activities, noted Jerry Tanenbaum, a Cherry Hill attorney for the girl and her mother.

“It’s an important social issue,” he said. “We’re talking about government officials being able to impose consequences on people for the things they say. ... From my perspective, they’re acting as much like teenagers as she is.”

The suit acknowledges district officials “may argue” the girl was punished for a different comment made during the same Twitter chat. In that remark, the girl asked her friends if they wanted to smoke with her before school the next morning.

But Tanenbaum contends the “smoke” argument, if made by administrators, would be a “pretext for the actual reason.”

Officials at the Somerdale-based regional district could not be reached for comment Monday. The suit, filed Friday in federal court in Camden, names the district, Superintendent Jack McCulley, and Sterling Principal Mark Napoleon as defendants.

In a Jan. 14 letter to the girl’s mother, McCulley said “these restrictions on your child’s education are needed to assure that (H.W.), all other students and staff members are safe.”

In that letter, the superintendent also noted H.W. had walked out of a meeting with district officials intended in part to discuss her “defaming remarks.”

“Her attendance at this meeting was important so we can discuss her continued willful disobedience toward authority and the latest incident where she posted comments on social media about the principal of Sterling High School,” wrote McCulley.

The letter also noted H.W. would be placed on home instruction until a child-study team could determine her “appropriate educational placement.”

The Twitter conversation occurred on the evening of Jan. 7, hours after the girl got in trouble for allegedly violating several rules at Sterling. The lawsuit says H.W. was suspended for two days after she used a cellphone in a hallway to engage in an “agitated argument” with her mother, then was “insubordinate” to a teacher who intervened.

The suit says school officials reviewed the girl’s Twitter account the next day.

The suit says H.W.’s health issues have caused behavior “that could otherwise be characterized as rude or disrespectful.” It notes the student “was frequently punished ... for oppositional behaviors and violations of school rules. The punishment imposed was often to put H.W. out of school for varying lengths of time.”

The suit continues: “The defendants were angry with H.W. because of her disability-based behaviors and were determined to punish her for such behaviors,” and contends district officials also acted improperly when they required H.W. to be drug-tested, apparently in response to the tweet about smoking.

The suit seeks unspecified damages for the girl and her mother. It also asks the school to adopt a policy “making clear that defendants have no authority to regulate, discipline, detain or search students based on constitutionally protected, off-campus non-school event speech that does not cause a substantial disruption at school.”

And it demands a court-ordered apology for the girl from McCulley and Napoleon.

A spokeswoman for the New Jersey School Boards Association, while not commenting on the lawsuit, said students “can be disciplined in some cases for conduct that occurs off school grounds.

“The question is whether the conduct affected the school environment and/or interfered with discipline in the school,” said the spokeswoman, Jeanette Rundquist.

The lawsuit asserts H.W.’s tweeted remarks were “non-threatening” and caused no disruption at the school.